1 PSYCHOLOGY (8th Edition, in Modules) David Myers Worth Publishers, © 2007

2 Evaluating Therapies Module 53

3 Therapy Evaluating Psychotherapies  Is Psychotherapy Effective?  The Relative Effectiveness of Different Therapies  Evaluating Alternative Therapies  Commonalities Among Psychotherapies  Culture and Values in Psychotherapies

4 Define Psychotherapy As said earlier, psychotherapy involves an emotionally charged, confiding interaction between a trained therapist and a mental patient.

5 Evaluating Therapies To whom do people turn for help with psychological difficulties? Community mental health specialists provide the largest outpatient psychotherapy.

6 Evaluating Psychotherapies Within psychotherapies cognitive therapies are most widely used, followed by psychoanalytic and family/group therapies.

7 Is Psychotherapy Effective? It is difficult to gauge the effectiveness of psychotherapy because there are different levels on which its effectiveness can be measured. 1.Does the patients sense improvement? 2.Does the therapist feel the patient has improved? 3.How do friends and family feel about patient’s improvement?

8 Client’s Perceptions If you ask clients about their experiences of getting into therapy, they always overestimate its effectiveness. Critics however remain skeptical. 1.Clients enter therapy in crisis and crisis may subside over the natural course of time (regression to normalcy). 2.Clients may need to believe the therapy was worth the effort. 3.Clients generally speak kindly of their therapists.

9 Clinician’s Perceptions Like clients, clinicians believe in the therapy’s success. They believe that the client is better off after receiving therapy than not. 1.Clinicians are aware of failures, but those of other therapists. 2.If a client seeks another clinician, the former therapist is more likely to argue that the client has developed another psychological problem. 3.Clinicians are likely to testify to the efficacy of their therapy regardless of the outcome of treatment.

10 Outcome Research How then can we objectively measure the effectiveness of psychotherapy? Meta-analysis of a number of studies has suggested that thousands of patients have benefited from getting therapy more so than those who did not.

11 Outcome Research Research shows that treated patients were 80% better than untreated ones.

12 The Relative Effectiveness of Different Therapies Which psychotherapy will be most effective for treating a particular problem? DisorderTherapy DepressionBehavior, Cognition, interpersonal AnxietyCognition, Exposure, Stress Inoculation BulimiaCognitive-behavior PhobiaBehavior Bed WettingBehavior Modification

13 Commonalities Among Psychotherapies Three commonalities shared by all forms of psychotherapies are: 1.Hope for demoralized people. 2.A new perspective. 3.An empathic, trusting and a caring relationship. © Mary Kate Denny/ PhotoEdit, Inc.

14 Culture and Values in Psychotherapy Psychotherapies may differ from each other and from clients in their personal beliefs, values, and cultural backgrounds. Search for a therapist should include visiting two or more therapists to judge with whom the client will feel comfortable.

15 Therapists & Their Training Clinical psychologists: Mostly PhDs. Expert in research, assessment, and therapy, supplemented by a supervised internship. Clinical or Psychiatric Social Worker: Master of Social Work plus postgraduate supervision prepares some social workers to offer psychotherapy, mostly to people with everyday personal and family problems.

16 Therapists & Their Training Counselors: Pastoral counselors, abuse counselors work with a problems arising from family relations and substance abuse and with spouse and child abusers and their victims. Psychiatrists: Physicians who specialize in the treatment of psychological disorders. Not all psychiatrists have had extensive training in psychotherapy, but as MDs they can prescribe medications.

17 Preventing Psychological Disorders “It is better to prevent than cure.” Peruvian Folk Wisdom Preventing psychological disorders means removing the factors that affect the society. Factors like poverty, meaning less work, constant criticism, unemployment, racism, and sexism.

18 Mental Health Programs Advocates of preventive mental health programs argue that many psychological disorders are likely due to social conditions. To prevent such disorders, we should change oppressive, esteem-destroying environments into more benevolent, nurturing environments that foster individual growth and self- confidence.

19 Psychological Disorders are Biopsychosocial in Nature